Warlock Apprentice

As Greya enjoyed greater fame, more and more wizards had become concerned about her “Birth” spell as well as how it was different from “Artificial Life”. On the contrary, Angor was slowly fading away from the public view.

Although there were still people who insisted on remembering his name.

Angor had spent another week working on alchemy illusions at Phantom Island. When Number 233 came to talk to him, he had filled the entire lab room with crystal balls, which was about a hundred of them.

“Mister Padt, here’s the initial report for your research.” Number 233 handed a pile of notes to Angor.

From a brief glance, Angor saw that the soul that was hit by the “white bullet” did not undergo any further changes on the outside and remained to be a “half-undead”, but according to Number 233, the half-undead was capable of thinking.

“He can follow up with conversations now. I assume that he kept some intelligence after death,” Number 233 explained, “and he only needed one week to completely regain basic communication skills.”

“So he has his own consciousness now?”

“Should be.” Number 233 nodded. “However, it’s not wise to speak to him right now. I think his mind is still dominated by the chaotic energy inside his form, and all of his actions tend to be… evil.”

Simply put, the soul was still a typical undead wraith, just that he knew how to use his “brain” now.

“Let’s go see him.” Angor collected all the crystal balls in the room and headed to the testing ground.

When Angor arrived, the half-undead quickly noticed a new presence, and he looked up at Angor’s direction with a wicked smile.

“What’s your name?” Angor tried to ask a question.

Between several maniacal laughs, the half-undead managed to make out several words.

“Crush… kill… bwahahaha… give me my banyan flower… it’s mine…”

Number 233 whispered to Angor, “He seems obsessed with this ‘banyan flower’. I checked in a book, it’s a flower described in the legends of the Revelation Empire, which grants immortality to those who consume it. But it was only a mortal rumor. Several wizards in history confirmed that the flower is actually the ‘Blue Pedestal’.”

Blue Pedestal was a low-tier magic plant mainly used for brewing a low-level potion called the Indigo Elixir, which improved its user’s lifespan by 5 to 15 years. There was, however, a limit to how many times one could use this potion. Moreover, this potion would prevent people from using any other types of life-improving potions.

This meant the rumor was only partially true—Blue Pedestal granted people longer lives, but it was far from being immortal. Due to the limited effect, most wizards and apprentices would not use the potion.

“Why do you want the banyan flower?” asked Angor.

“It’s mine! Ziro… how dare he fool me… I’m going to kill him!” the half-undead screamed.

“Ziro…” Angor considered the new name he just heard. “So, Ziro killed you and took your banyan flower. You’ve fallen to get revenge. Am I right?”

“Are you right…? I don’t care! Give me my banyan flower… LET ME OUT OF HERE! I’ll get Ziro! Tear him apart! Limb from limb!”

It appeared that even though the half-undead regained some mental capabilities, it remembered very little about his past life.

As Number 233 said, the negative energy inside the soul had completely maddened him. This soul was unable to reason rationally like ordinary souls.

“Let’s begin with phase two.” Angor copied Number 233’s notes onto his own notebook. From what he saw till now, the undead only turned from a ruthless monster into a somewhat “level-headed” monster. Regardless, it was still a monster.

Not much had changed.

“This is all my revolver can do? That’s a lot weaker than the semi-Mystery item in Soul Genesis Garden… Or did I use it the wrong way?”

He shook his head and opened the sealed door to the testing area.

Immediately, the half-undead lunged at Angor, but it didn’t get very far before a rune on the floor locked him down.

Angor shook his head again and sighed in distress. So far, the white bullet was quite useless. He aimed his gun at the half-undead again and wanted to see if a second shot would do anything.

Like last time, a “comet” consisted of several glowing tentacles sunk into the half-undead and caused it to collapse.

Angor stepped out of the testing area and asked Number 233 to keep watching.

He received a new report two days later.

According to Number 233, the “stable” energy inside the soul kept growing, while the negative part decreased drastically. However, the energy shift seemed to be weaker compared to the first bullet. When the energy stabilized again, only about 1/4 negative energy was left in the soul, while the remaining part was occupied by stable energy.

In other words, the second bullet retained 50% of its effectiveness compared to the first one.

When Angor came to the testing ground again, he saw the half-undead being quieter than before. When he moved closer, the soul did not attack him right away. Instead, the man only observed him carefully.

But telling from the gleams of hatred in his eyes, the man could not be considered “sane” yet.

“How should we proceed, Mister Padt?” Number 233 asked.

Without much thought, Angor took aim and shot the half-undead for the third time.

“Keep it up. Make sure to keep a record of all the details.”

After another two days, Angor checked the newest report he expected to see. Like before, the effect of the third bullet was further decreased by half. Currently, only 1/8 of negative energy was left inside the soul.

Telling from this, he could not fully cleanse the negative energy no matter how many bullets he used. As long as there was negative energy still lingering, the soul could not be considered “pure”.

“His mind is getting clearer than ever,” said Number 233, “but he resents us just like before.”

“What do you think will happen if we keep doing this?”

Number 233 was taken aback a little as he wasn’t expecting such a question. Quickly, he thought about what he saw during the experiment over the past few days.

“Mister Padt. In my opinion, this individual will slowly become an undead with decent intelligence at this rate, who will still harm people but with deadlier tactics and plans. It will be dangerous to let him remain in this world.”

Angor nodded. He almost reached the same conclusion.

But he always had a suspicion in his mind. Is Prelude to Rebirth only used to create these “deadlier” creatures?

There were many different Mystery items in this world with strange properties, so it was not surprising to find such an effect.

However… Prelude to Rebirth was a weapon used to eliminate the undead creatures. Why would it generate bullets that would provide the opposite result? Was it possible for the Mystery effect of an item to go against its creator’s will?

Perhaps such accidents could happen. Yet Angor’s instinct told him that this was not the case.

He then tried to consider what this “intelligent undead” meant to him, and he got a possible idea.

He was going to begin the “4th phase” of the experiment.

He stepped in front of the half-undead and noticed that after being shot by three white bullets, the half-undead was beginning to look better and was wearing proper outerwear, which was a coffee-colored sweater vest. The man also had a checkered round cap as well as several silver ornaments affixed around his waist area.

This man had to be a mortal since it referred to the Blue Pedestal as the “banyan flower”. From his current getup, Angor assumed that he was a nobleman without much sense of style.

The soul was sitting on a bench while staring at Angor with great enmity, but apart from the angry look, Angor also noticed another emotion, which was “expectation”.

“Do you want something? This… perhaps?” Angor showed his revolver.

For the first time, the half-undead asked a question, “Who are you, and what do you want?”

Angor slowly lifted his gun without answering that question.

“As you may have guessed, I’ll use this on you again. But this time, I’m going to kill you.”

He activated “Prelude to Elimination”. When he pulled the trigger, an invisible sound wave was unleashed from the barrel.